introduction- universityof kent（介绍-肯特大学）（139页）.docVIP

Access to Knowledge in Africa How to free a continent from the shackles of copyright*+ By Kaushik Goburdhun** [September 2006] *This thesis has been written under the supervision of Alan Story- Senior Lecturer at Kent Law School- in order to fulfil the assessment requirements of the LLM in International Commercial Law at the University of Kent. + Total number of words excluding abstract, acknowledgment, appendices, bibliography, footnotes, list of abbreviations and acronyms, quotations and table of contents:20 371. ** The author qualified as a barrister in the UK and is, at the time of submission of the present thesis, employed as a State Counsel at the Attorney General’s Office of Mauritius. All the views expressed herewith should be construed as those of the author and should, in no circumstances, be construed as those of the Attorney General’s Office of Mauritius. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page No Acknowledgment 4 Abstract 5 Abbreviations and Acronyms 6 Introduction 9 CHAPTERS 1. An analysis of the international legal instruments governing copyright from a legal and economic perspective The Berne Convention-An author’s monopoly on knowledge? 12 Publishers’ private greed impedes upon access to knowledge in Africa 15 TRIPS: ‘Turning an arcane field of law into a tiger with claws’ 18 Denying access to digital information 23 Bilateralism Agreements: The African continent trapped 26 2. Copyright: Forcing Africa to its Knees (a) Academic Journals: A scarcity in Africa 28 (b) The prohibitive pricing of books its social impact 34 (c) Copyright: A ‘speed bump’ to distance education 43 (d) Does copyright seal blind Africans fate to the darkness of ignorance? 47 (e) The copyright onslaught on libraries 54 3. An overview and a critical analysis of the reasons justifying copyright (a) The Incentive Theory 60 (b) The Natural Rights/ Labour Theory 6